Tradicinė japonų estetika ir menas

LT[...] Lietuvių skaitytojui pateikiama studija neaprėps visų Japonijos estetinės minties ir įvairialypių meno formų tyrinėjimų. Joje apsiribojama tik, autoriaus manymu, pagrindinių bei mūsų metui svarbių tradicinės japonų estetikos bei meno krypčių, mokyklų, koncepcijų, idėjų, kategorijų, japonizmo reiškinio analize. Nors pasaulyje pastaraisiais dešimtmečiais įvairiomis kalbomis parašoma vis daugiau japonų menui skirtų knygų, tačiau išsamesnių tyrinėjimų apie tradicinę japonų estetiką Vakarų kalbomis yra tik keletas, todėl tokios knygos pasirodymas Lietuvoje gali atrodyti netikėtas. Autorius tikisi, kad jo mintys, apmąstymai, lietuvio požiūris į šią daugiau nei ketvirtį amžiaus jo pasaulėžiūrą veikusią kultūrą bus įdomūs skaitytojui, ypač humanitarinei inteligentijai, menininkams, jaunimui, kuriems pažintis su rafinuočiausią pasaulyje japonų estetikos ir meno tradicija gali būti gera paskata kurti ar keisti vertybines orientacijas. Estetika šioje knygoje suvokiama labai plačiai: į šią kategoriją įeina ne tik akademiniai jos aspektai, bet ir tradicinei japonų kultūrai labai svarbus gamtos grožio, buities bei kasdienybės estetikos pasaulis. [...]. [Iš Pratarmės]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Japonija, tradicija, estetika, menas, filosofija; Japanese Tradition, Aesthetics, Art, Philosophy.

ENSpecific Features of Japanese Aesthetics. Japanese aesthetics, unlike that of India and China, does not have ancient traditions extending over thousands of years. It is more sensitive to external influences, to changes. The evolution of aesthetic thought in the Land of the Rising Sun gave birth to a world of unique categories, to distinctive principles of aesthetic understanding and art appreciation. In no other country on earth have aesthetic feeling and artistic values been able to take such firm root in everyday life. Most assuredly, the historical mission of the Japanese people is to exalt beauty and art. One of the most distinctive features of Japanese culture and aesthetic consciousness is that those areas of human creative expression which remain marginal in other cultures acquire extreme importance in Japan and become the focus of intense aesthetic reflection and artistic creation. Abstract speculation is foreign to Japanese aesthetic thought, which is typically aesthetics from below. Mainly, it is not developed in pedantic philosophical tracts but forms its structure, content, and system of categories in the context of specific artistic problems. In the early Middle Ages aesthetics was already closely tied to the artistic evolutionary process of the time and stimulated the development of original art forms. The most eminent aestheticians (Kukai, Ki no Tsurayuki, Sei Shōnagon, Murasaki Shikibu, Nijo Yoshimoto, Fujiwara Shunzei, Zeami, Ikkyū Sōjun, Sen no Rikyū, Bashō) were mainly synthesizing homo universalis personalities who stood out because of their multifaceted talent, refined aesthetic taste, and brilliant grasp of the technology of various art forms and of the means of artistic expression.They expressed themselves not simply as aestheticians but primarily as famous thinkers, poets, writers, calligraphers, painters, and masters of other branches of art who sought to find theoretical principles for problems that arose in artistic practice. With the rise of different arts there appeared normative aesthetic treatises (karon - reflections about poetry, bungeiron - reflections about the arts) which explained how to create works in a specific art form or genre. Aesthetic ideas were not only developed in special treatises, but they were often also organically woven into the fabric of novels, travel writings, and diaries. They were expounded picturesquely with a broad reliance on the power of poetic images and metaphors. Unlike Western aesthetic tradition, which is dominated by distinctions between subject and object, idea and image, Japanese aesthetics tends to reject this dualism. Rejecting, too, the idea of actively reordering the world, characteristic of the Western mentality, it seeks to grasp man's unity with the world of nature, to discern its rhythms, the natural changes of the seasons, to illuminate man's unique relationship with the phenomena being contemplated, to reveal the beauty concealed beneath the outer mantle of reality. The idea of recreating the world is foreign to the Japanese. They exalt the principle of inaction. Beauty exists in the world around us. It is immanent in existence. Thus, man cannot create that which already exists. He can only discern. Japanese aestheticians characteristically distrust the power of analytic reason, the logos principle in general. They understand very well the limitations of the rational mind, of abstract theoretical constructs, when seeking to know the most complex forms of aesthetic experience and art. That attitude conditions their view of the rational mind as an instrument which creates and destroys the primordial integrity of the world of beauty.The essence of beauty is known not intellectually, but intuitively, through the most sensitive emotional experiences, which do not submit to rational, verbal description. Consequently, Japanese aesthetic evaluations are characterized by sensuality, softness, attention directed exclusively toward the problems of the psychology of art and aesthetic understanding. This distinctively Japanese understanding of the aesthetic world is conditioned by national culture, mythology, religion, and folkloric atradition as well as by influences spreading from India, China, and Korea. Between many Japanese and continental schools of aesthetics and art we observe a direct connection which is often indicated by the Japanese borrowing of Indian and Chinese terms and names.The Japanese get the specific features of their mentality and aesthetic values mainly from Shinto, the old religion of Japan, and from their mythology, the essence of which is the awe-inspired deification of nature. The pan-aestheticism of Shinto forms in the consciousness of the Japanese a stable psychological attitude toward the sacral function of beauty. In the course of centuries many things have changed in this worldview; what has not changed, however, is the mythological-poetic understanding of the world, ecstatic enchantment with the constantly changing beauty of natural phenomena. The Shinto cult of beauty has determined the basic direction of the Japanese aesthetic understanding of the world and of the evolution of art, while the waves of Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, Tantric, and Ch'an influence coming from the continent have constantly adjusted it and enriched it with new ideas. The Japanese have adopted continental culture in their own way. Each significant wave of cultural influence from the continent has often been followed by a short period of isolation and assimilation. [...]. [From the publication]